We decided to make our first night in New York City a Broadway night. I’m so glad we ended up choosing the musical “Company”… it completely blew me away!
The story opens on the 35th birthday of Bobby, a bachelorette whose friends are all married couples. We then get to see vignettes of each couple’s marriage (and its respective issues), as Bobby navigates dating in New York City. The show explores themes of marriage, friendship, connection, loneliness, and growing older in a really profound but comedic way.
It was on at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater, which was a short walk from our hotel. It’s a really intimate theater built in the 1920s and I think what really set the tone for me was that despite its small size, there were two drinks bars – one on each of the main and lower levels! I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that anything you could want was just a short reach away. It reminded me a lot of the research I did this year for my essay titled “The Golden Age: How a Culture of Consumption, Mass Marketing, and Demand-Driven Economic Factors Propelled America’s Growth Relative to Britain between 1880-1920”.
We also made reservations at Bea nearby, which was perfect for a pre-Broadway dinner – complete with black and white movies playing projected on the walls and framed vintage photographs.
Things I liked…
- The screenplay: superb. I also loved the gender swap choices they made for the characters (e.g. Sondheim and Furth originally wrote Bobby as a man).
- The acting: packed to the brim with physical comedy!
- Live band: outdid themselves
- Set: awe-inspiring
- Characters: on point
I liked it so much that I went to @dramabookshop to buy myself a copy of the script, and decided to annotate it with some of the directing & comedic choices that stood out to me! Here are two of my favourite pages in the script.
I also had a lot of fun looking around this bookshop – it’s packed with books for anyone interested in or involved with the show industry. You can check out a little Reel I made featuring five books that caught my eye. One of my favourites was “The Young Actor’s Notebook”, which pronounced Mantra #1:
You have to be in a state of play to design. If you’re not in a state of play, you cannot make anything.”
Paula Scher
Really hoping they tape this particular production of “Company”, because it’s officially closing on Broadway at the end of the month. Fingers crossed!
